KILLYAN PICHÉ's Arc

Chapter 3 of 8

The broken jar sat in the trash bin by the barn. Killyan stared at the glass shards. Catou's lamp was gone. The cat had watched it shatter and bolt. Even if they built another, a lamp on a post could wobble, tip, and scare the cat all over again. He needed light that stayed still no matter what. Harlow crouched beside him, chewing a Dorito. "The post was the problem," he said. "One bump and it falls. We need the light fixed to something that can't move." "Like what?" Killyan asked. "Like a wall," Harlow said. He pointed at the barn. "We mount it right on the barn. Nothing knocks over a barn." It was a good plan. But the barn wall was tall, and the boys had no tools and no brackets. They needed a grown-up who could build. Killyan thought of his uncle Tim. Tim ran the excavator for Killyan's dad, and he could mount anything. He was in the driveway, leaning on a fence, staring at the bare porch frame he and Ruan had started two summers back. "That porch is still naked," Tim said when the boys found him. "Two years. Your dad keeps changing the plan." He pushed up his cap. "What do you two want?" "We need a light mounted on the barn," Killyan said. "A bug light. Low, by the wall, so it can't fall." Tim looked at the barn, then at the boys. "Easy," he said. "Bracket, three screws, done." He grabbed his drill from the truck. "Faster than finishing a porch, apparently." Tim screwed a steel bracket to the barn wall, knee-high off the ground. Catou brought a fresh jar and a purple bulb and wired it into place. Tim tugged the bracket hard. It did not budge. "That's not coming off," he said. "Could hang off it myself." Killyan waited on the porch for dark. The bulb glowed violet against the barn wall. Moths came. Then beetles. Killyan held still and did not even breathe loud. Two blue eyes appeared at the treeline. The cat crept forward, slow, its little glasses catching the light. It stopped. It studied the glow for a long time. No post wobbled. No jar tipped. The light just stayed. The cat came closer than ever before. It sat down three steps from the barn wall and watched the moths. Killyan's heart pounded. He did not move from the porch. He let the cat stay. The light held all night. The cat did not run. But it did not let Killyan near, either. It only trusted the wall, not the boy. In the morning, Killyan knew the trap was finally steady. Now he had a harder problem. The cat would come to the light. It would not come to him. He had to make the cat trust Killyan himself.